The Best Field Trip Ever Essay

Have you ever taken a field trip that broadened your horizons — or taught you something that you would have never learned from a textbook? Perhaps you visited a Buddhist temple, a butterfly conservatory or a historic cemetery? Or maybe you just took a class trip that was really fun?

What was your favorite field trip?

In the article “Class Field Trip Stops at a Local Pawnshop,” Ron Lieber writes about a personal finance and economics teacher in Ohio who took his students on a class trip to learn more about high-cost lending.

The last time Brian Page had to file the paperwork to evict a tenant from a rental property he and his wife own, he noticed all the check-cashing services and pawn shops on his drive home from the courthouse. A clerk tipped him off to what was going on: Every day, lots of people leave court with checks they’ve received in legal settlements. They often stop to cash their checks right away, paying a big fee for the privilege, and then go shopping with the money.

By day, Mr. Page teaches personal finance and economics to high school students, and as the stores disappeared from his rearview mirror he had an idea. “I wanted my students to feel how dirty it is,” he said. “You can talk about these places and show them the math on the fees, but I wanted them to feel it.”

Some of them already know what it means to struggle. Mr. Page teaches at Reading High School, which is pretty representative of America, with students who have occasionally ended up in jail or had children of their own or reckon with relatives who have stolen their identities. Still, they’re at the beginning of their financial lives, and he’s constantly looking for ever more visceral ways to reinforce the importance of good savings habits, great credit scores and low fees.

“So I figured I’d get some kids, throw them in a bus and go take a walk down the wrong street,” he said. “I was just going to take them to these places and hope that I didn’t get punched in the face by one of the managers there.”

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us …

— What was your favorite school field trip? What did you like about it? What did you learn on the trip?

— Are field trips an important part of the learning experience? Why?

— Where would you like to go on a class field trip within an hour’s drive of your school? Why?

— Would you like to have attended the field trip described in the article? Do you think having students learn about high-cost loans in actual check-cashing stores is more effective than just learning the information from a textbook? Why?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older.

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INTRODUCTION

Going on a Educational trip means more than simply leaving the school grounds. Educational trips should always have a major educational element, but the impact of Educational trips can extend much further. The importance of Educational trips includes giving students the chance to build closer bonds with their classmates, experience new environments and enjoy a day away from the classroom When students and teachers are together outside the classroom, new educational environments and experiences are possible. Students may have the opportunity to observe many things that are not available at school, including exotic wildlife, rare plants and maybe even the stars if the Educational trip is to a planetarium. Discussing the…show more content…

Variety Educational trips also function to put some variety into otherwise regimented lesson plans. Instead of spending every day in the classroom, students get to learn in a new environment with new instructors. Educational trips also may give students a chance to interact with students from other schools as they learn together or participate in group activities Learning Styles Educational trips will often cater to more than one learning style, making them excellent teaching tools for certain students. Classroom lectures apply primarily to audio learners, who learn best by listening. Visual learners can benefit from visual aids, which exist in the classroom, but are much more frequent during a Educational trip. Finally, for tactile learners, Educational trips offer an uncommon opportunity to perform hands-on learning. Classroom Supplement It's important for instructors and school administrators to choose Educational trips that augment existing lesson plans and synchronize with classroom learning. A Educational trip that teachers choose for these reasons can serve to illustrate difficult concepts or extend the general natural of a classroom lesson by giving more specific information. The specialists who lead school groups on Educational trips also may be able to